Patrick said, “Have Nick’s credit card company track the payment. Get every confirmation number you can, contact information. It’ll be a dummy company, but eventually it’ll lead somewhere. It has to.”
Connor wasn’t happy, but it gave him something to do. Nick clapped him on the back. “Where can we work?” he asked Peterson.
“I’ll get you set up.” They left with Carina.
Dillon and Patrick were alone. Dillon watched Lucy on the camera and admitted to his brother, “I’m scared for her.”
“So am I.” Patrick was reading code that seemed to fly by on the computer, his eyes darting back and forth. Focused, determined.
Dillon paced. What good was it to understand why someone kills when he couldn’t prevent him from doing it?
Kate was the key. She had confronted Trask, faced him. If Dillon could bounce theories off her, it would help him put together a better profile, one that could lead Dillon to Trask. And to Lucy.
If he could find his first kill, Dillon was certain that it would lead to his identity. A killer’s first victim almost always led to him. The FBI had to have run like crimes.
Dillon needed to put together a visual time line. He flipped open Peterson’s file and had just started creating a time line on the white board when Peterson’s computer beeped. Dillon looked at the screen.
“It’s her,” Patrick said.
Does Lucy know sign language?
Dillon typed.
Yes.
I’m sending you a feed of the last thirty seconds before it was cut off. Watch her hands. I think she’s signing in Spanish, but my Spanish is rusty.
Kate, you need to be careful. He knows where you are.
A long pause before a link came through and the words:
I know.
Dillon clicked on the link. He tried to focus on Lucy’s hands, but both he and Patrick tensed as they watched their sister brutalized as she was wrestled to the floor by two men. They replayed it, watching only her hands.
Kate was right. She was signing in Spanish.
Boat. Island. Before sunrise. Boat. Island. Before sunrise.
“She’s telling us the time. That the sun hasn’t come up yet.”
“It’s four thirty in the morning right now,” Patrick said. “She could be close by.”
“In the same time zone.” Which meant she could be thirty minutes away or hours.
“On an island. There are dozens of islands off the coast.”
“In this time zone, hundreds,” Dillon corrected. “I don’t think he’s close,” Dillon added.
“Why? You’re basing it on a hunch, not on fact.” Patrick was getting agitated. “She could be on Anacapa or San Miguel. An hour or less from where we are by helicopter! We need to check the Channel Islands right now.”
“We have less than two days to find her. We can’t possibly storm every island off the coast. And your hunch that it’s the Channel Islands? Filled with tourists this time of year.”
“There’s a lot of small islands in the chain. They could be on one of those.”
“But what if we’re wrong? We have no evidence, and it would take days to search every island even with the manpower of the FBI behind us.”
“Dammit, we have to try!”
Dillon tamped down his own temper, knowing his brother was teetering on the edge. First Connor, now Patrick. Well, so was Dillon. He was just better at holding back. Assessing. Being the reasonable, responsible, mature Kincaid. Sometimes he wished he could explode with the injustice he saw in humanity. But he couldn’t. People depended on his stability, particularly his family.
He tried to calmly explain his reasoning. “He had Lucy for more than twelve hours before putting the webcam on her. I think the bulk of that time was getting her to his destination. They went by boat, at least for part of the trip. Twelve hours on a ship could get them all the way to the Canadian border, or to the tip of Baja California.”
“Or he was waiting for midnight,” Patrick said. “Which is when the feed started. Are you willing to put Lucy’s life on the line for a theory?”
“Are you?” Dillon responded.
Peterson walked back in, immediately on alert when he felt the tension between the brothers. “What happened?”
Dillon told him about Lucy’s clues.
“I’ll get the Coast Guard on alert up the entire West Coast. I think he went to Mexico or Canada,” Peterson added.
“Why?”
“We’ve never found one of his sites in the United States. When we found Meghan, it was on a small island near Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada. But if that’s the case, the sun would already have risen. He used a private, secluded estate on a Caribbean island at one point, but we raided it and seized all his property.”
“So Lucy’s right? She’s on an island?”
Peterson nodded. “Very likely.”
“But we still know next to nothing,” Patrick mumbled, clicking frenetically on his keyboard.
“We know she’s on the West Coast, which is more than we knew five minutes ago,” Dillon said.
“I found her,” Patrick said.
“Lucy?” Dillon and Peterson said simultaneously.
“Kate Donovan. At least I’ve isolated her general area. Mexico, near the west Texas border. A couple hours out of Hidalgo, in the mountains, north of Monterrey. But she went off-line as soon as you downloaded the feed.”
Peterson looked at the map. “Dammit, that area is full of rebels, drug smugglers, gunrunners. We can get into Monterrey, but that means a couple hours’ detour. Direct? Virtually impossible.”
Dillon stared at Patrick. “I can find her.”
Patrick shook his head, mixed emotions crossing his boyish face. “Don’t.”
“I have to. For Lucy. Just get me a more accurate location by the time Jack calls back.”
“He might not even call,” said Patrick.
“He’ll call me,” Dillon insisted.
“Who’s Jack?” Peterson asked.
“Our brother,” Patrick said. “Jack is Dillon’s twin.”
“Another Kincaid?” Peterson mumbled.
Jack returned Dillon’s call thirty minutes later.
“Hello, Jack,” Dillon answered.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked without preamble. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in eleven years, but Jack got right to the point.
Dillon didn’t waste time. “Lucy has been kidnapped. I need your help finding an ex-FBI agent who’s hiding out in the eastern Mexican mountains.”
“Are you sure? Lucy’s an adult. Maybe she just walked.”
“If you have an Internet connection, I can send you the feed where she’s half naked and tied to the floor.” Dillon’s voice vibrated with anger. Jack had gone off to do his own thing twenty years ago and came home only for funerals. He didn’t know Lucy, and he wanted to believe she had just left the family without a word?
“Of course I’m sure she’s been kidnapped.” Dillon suppressed the complex emotions that talking with his brother Jack inevitably stirred. “The FBI has a task force in place. Her kidnapper has done this before. And if we don’t find her in forty-three hours, she’ll be dead. Murdered live on the Internet. Do you think I would call you if it weren’t a life-or-death emergency? If I didn’t think you might be in a position to help?”
“And you want me to track this FBI agent down why?”
“She has some sort of compound where she’s been tracking this killer for the last couple of years. She has her own issues with the FBI and won’t come back voluntarily.”
“So you want me to kidnap her and bring her to you?”
“No. I want you to bring me to her. She’s on a mountain, about an hour north of Monterrey, which according to the FBI is dangerous territory.”
“Dangerous is an understatement,” Jack said. “I’m not bringing you anywhere. I’ll find the agent myself and compel her to return.”
Dillon said, “No, Jack.
You’ll bring both me and Patrick to her. She has computer files we need and the ability to find Lucy. She thinks she can do it on her own, but I think our killer might just want her to find him, that he might leak her information to trap her. And Lucy is his bait.”
“Why do you care about this renegade FBI agent? Who cares about the damn feds? Nothing but backstabbing bureaucrats with guns. I’ll help you find Lucy. I have friends all over the world.”
The quiet arrogant confidence in Jack’s voice was typical.
“No,” Dillon said. “Why is it always your way, Jack? You know very little about this situation. I’m certainly not putting Lucy’s life in your hands.”
“But you’re putting her life in your hands, Doctor? Since when were you in the military? Or the police academy? Do you even know how to shoot a gun?”
“Forget it, Jack. I’ll find Kate on my own. I’m sorry I called you. I guess you really are no longer family.”
Click.
Dillon stared at his cell phone. He didn’t like to gamble, but he also believed he understood his twin. He hoped he did.
For twenty years, Dillon had wondered what had happened to Jack that he would turn his back on his family and devote his life solely to the military—whatever the hell it was Jack did for them. Jack had only come home for Justin’s funeral, a sad testament to a man who as a boy had been Dillon’s best friend.
But Jack was fiercely loyal, had been from early childhood. They’d moved every six to twelve months while Colonel Kincaid was moved from military base to military base. They could only count on themselves and their family, because friendships were fleeting.
Jack joined the military when he turned eighteen and then something happened. Something that seemed to prevent him from keeping in touch with his family. Jack never spoke of it, never even acknowledged that anything had happened.
But Dillon knew his twin brother. Family used to be important to him.
The phone rang five minutes later.
“I’ll meet you in four hours at a bar called La Honda in Hidalgo, Texas,” Jack said. “Don’t bring anyone with you.”
Dillon wrote down the information Jack imparted and hung up. He was glad he was right about Jack, that he would come through after all.
Don’t bring anyone?
“Patrick, we’re going to Texas. I’m going to find Agent Peterson and see how fast he can get us out there.”
SIX
“GOOD MORNING, sunshine.”
Trevor Conrad walked into the room, staying out of view of the camera. Lucy must have dozed off. She startled awake.
How could she have even fallen asleep?
She jerked at the ties around her wrists. Her skin was chafed and sore.
“Fuck you, Trevor,” she said.
He chuckled. He was laughing at her. Lucy’s face grew hot with humiliation and anger. Fear was there, too, cold and hot at the same time, making everything in the plain room sharper, with fewer shadows.
Light.
The one covered window blocked the sun, but the quality of light told Lucy it was morning. How long had she been sleeping? It couldn’t have been long.
“Lucy, I’d like to reintroduce you to Roger,” Trevor said. “You remember him, of course.”
The big ugly jerk she’d kicked in the balls when he’d cut off her bra walked in behind Trevor. She watched as he unzipped his jeans.
“No. No no no no!” She shook her head back and forth, as if she thought that if she said it long enough, loud enough, they would go away. She fought her restraints, but they held fast. Warm blood coated her wrists from the chafing ropes.
Trevor laughed softly. “You’re such a fabulous actress, Lucy. You may have a future in film.” He shrugged. “Or not.”
Roger approached and knelt over her, his penis growing rigid. She closed her eyes.
Pretend you’re far away.
He pulled her jeans down to her ankles, where they tangled in the ropes at her feet.
The beach. The ocean is rolling up the sand. Seagulls. Kids. Friends. Volleyball.
Something cold and hard touched her skin and her underpants were cut from her body. The hard reality of her fate slapped her and Lucy couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening. She couldn’t be anywhere else.
She screamed.
Kate tried to ignore what was happening to Lucy Kincaid as she scoured data for any clue that would tell her where the satellite feed was originating. It was hard to avoid it, to avoid remembering Paige. Her eyes watered and her teeth ground together as she tried to suppress her own primal scream at what Lucy now endured.
Damn bastard Trask knew she was watching.
Power.
The enormity of his power structure is what confused Kate. He’d had money at his disposal, even before his online porn sites began to flourish. His corporations paid taxes, filed reports, had a board of directors—all of which had been thoroughly investigated by the FBI and deemed legitimate. In fact, at one point her boyfriend, Evan, also an FBI agent, had told Kate she was chasing a ghost, that Trask didn’t exist. That the disappearance of the women she and Paige had been trying to find was unrelated to their jobs as porn stars. That April Klinger hadn’t been killed on screen. It had all just been an act, he said.
She’d fought with Evan the week before the sting, before Paige was kidnapped.
They had been in the living room of the small town house they shared near Quantico. She worked at headquarters, while Evan was a special agent in charge out of Washington, D.C. She was in Violent Crimes/Major Offenders, he was in Public Corruption. But he’d served in VCMO for years and had been a great sounding board for her and Paige when they’d been assigned a missing persons case related to the online pornography they routinely monitored for the VCMO unit.
Kate paced as she verbalized her reasoning on the case. It was Sunday, a rare day off for both of them, and Evan had wanted to take his boat out. He was annoyed that she was still in work mode.
“What if April was murdered during the play-acting?” Kate asked. “Maybe it was an accident. They didn’t mean to kill her. But if they reported it, a half-dozen agencies would be all over their ass, ready to shut them down. So Trask and his people covered it up.”
Evan sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “You interviewed every actor employed by Trask Enterprises and everyone said April was alive and well after the shoot.”
“Then where is she? No one outside of their studio has seen her. She’s no longer working for them.”
“The CEO, what’s his name, said she quit. Said she was going to Hollywood to do real movies.” Evan rolled his eyes.
“The CEO is Roger Morton. You haven’t taken my case seriously since the beginning, have you?”
“I’ve listened to you for months, helped analyze data, took my own time to interview witnesses. Don’t tell me I haven’t taken you seriously. You’ve spent more time watching online porn than spending time in bed with me. What am I supposed to make of that?”
“That’s sick, Evan. This is my job. I need to find out what happened to April. Her grandmother deserves to know.”
Evan walked over to her, put his hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eye. Evan had been good to her, ever since they’d met two years ago when assigned to the same special task force. Last year he had moved into her town house. He’d been tolerant of Kate’s obsessive personality, how she took her cases personally, and up until April Klinger went missing, she’d begun to share her past with him. He knew things about her no one else knew, things she’d lied about to get into the FBI Academy in the first place.
“This is all about you, isn’t it, Kate?”
She froze. The last thing she’d expected of Evan was bringing up her past, especially now. Especially like this.
“It has nothing to do with me. You once told me you admired my dedication. If it weren’t for me being such a pit bull with evidence, we’d never have found the Williamette Strangler two years ago. You said that yourself.”
“I know, but—”
“I feel that there’s something here. I can’t prove it yet. But I know there is. Something about her eyes—don’t you see it?”
She pulled out a file and shoved a picture of April under his nose. It was her eyes that told Kate she was dead. The split second of film before the tape was cut.
She didn’t know what was sicker: strangling April to death while having sex, or running the segment on the website for months after the murder. It was only after she and Paige started interviewing employees of Trask Enterprises that the download went off-line.
And it killed her that when she’d fought tooth and nail to get a subpoena of the original digital file, it cut off at the exact same spot.
“Kate, I love you.” Evan touched her hair, ran a finger lightly over her cheek. “You’re a fantastic agent and even now you’re becoming a legend in the agency with your computer skills. You’ve spent the last four months of your life working on a case that has gone nowhere. Put it on the back burner. Other violent crimes out there need your attention. Or maybe you should consider the offer you got last month from the e-crimes unit. They want you. You’ll get a raise, you’ll get a promotion, and you’ll love it. You told me that.”
It was true. She’d wanted e-crimes because it was a challenge. But her heart—her soul—was in VCMO. She’d once told Evan that she’d been born to do this job.
“I just can’t let April go.” Kate implored Evan with her eyes, took his hands in hers. “You understand, don’t you?”
He kissed her hand. “I understand. I just think the case is cold. And you can continue to monitor it, I wouldn’t expect you to drop it completely, but it’s been four months. There’s a new hot case every day. This isn’t helping you. You’ve already strained your relationship with everyone else in the unit, including your boss. And Paige isn’t making any friends, either.”
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